Sunday, April 22, 2012

Clearing Out Cobwebs . . .

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The Spring Cleaning continues. As you can see here, things sometimes need to be cleaned out, including cobwebs in the mind, and the mind's eye . . .
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In fact, these scenes were in an abandoned house out on the island off the coast of Brittany where the rock concert photos of a couple posts back are from. A sublime corner of our paradise on Earth.
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While turning our own home inside out and shaking out dust and debris over these past few weekends, I came across another stash of negatives from photos taken back in the 1990's on mostly black and white film. With these as well as all that still remained to be converted to digital files from the main hoard, there are close to 4000 negatives to edit and scan. I've decided to invest in a digital scanner, which will be far cheaper than paying a lab to do the work. But it will take some time to go through them all, decide what to scan, and then do it. A labor of love in any case. Many of portraits of our daughters in there when they were still very little. A voyage back in time.
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Another rock turned over the other day took me back into my (large) collection of cassette tapes from the late 80's, all full of music that was near and dear to my soul, but which has largely lain un-listened-to in the last 20 years since I moved to France. Last week I found a fabulous little free piece of software on the web called Audacity which allows plugging a cassette deck directly into the PC, and then recording the music as MP3 files. So there are 16 tons of music lined up to get converted to MP3 and then to be copied to the iPod, to have a second life before the cassette tapes disintegrate. I'm amazed that after 20 years the tapes are still crystal clear. Will wonders never cease !
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Life is good . . .
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22 comments:

Lynne with an e said...

I tried leaving a comment, to the effect that I fear we may never see you again, but Blogger apparently didn't like it. Sooo... let me say that these photos of the abandoned and destitute and scabrous are simply beautiful.

Lynne with an e said...

PS. Glad to hear that life is good out your way, cobwebs notwithstanding. What was that I was saying recently about cleanliness being next to godliness?

genie said...

These three shots look like professional collages of found material hanging on the wall of an art museum. I bet these walls have a lot of stories to tell. The textures and detail you were able to capture are aw3some. Kudos. genie

Owen said...

Dearest Lynne, I fear you have not seen the last of me, I may go down a burrow hole for a while, but will always pop back up like a jack-in-the-box... ah yes, cleanliness and godliness... well, I may not have much of the latter, but the former is more agreeable to live in than its opposite, if that makes sense, though the opposite is often more photogenic...

Owen said...

Genie, mille merci, if you know any museums that would like these collages, let me know, we could maybe cut them out of the walls, before the walls fall down ? :-)

Or just hang the photos in the museum...

Steve said...

I could spend hours looking at that first photo - the textures and colours are amazing. If I was at all painterly I'd be digging out the oils right now.

jeff said...

J'adore ces peintures d'après usure ;-)
Belle journée ;-)

martinealison said...

Une maison qui donne une âme à vos photos ou vos photos donnent une âme à cette maison...
M A G I F I Q U E...
Gros bisous

Catherine said...

sounds like you will be very busy for the next few years with these projects!! Good luck and the abandoned house shots are most evocative as usual - Greetings from the Riviera

Gwen Buchanan said...

Aren't surprises wonderful.. Now I need to find that cassette player/mp3maker too, can't bear to lose all my old tapes.

The Pliers said...

Owen,

Thanks for having the audacity to post about Audacity! That sounds like a perfect software for my currently safely stored bunch of cassettes!

Love the bits of color among the decay! Do stop off at "Tongue In Cheek" to whet your appetite for a trip to Mérida, Yucatán for your camera's future! You won't regret it.

Happy Converting!

Anonymous said...

Just was wondering for how many times the switch has been used to turn on the light in the morning, just before making coffee.

Please have a good new week ahead.

PeterParis said...

... which makes me think about the thousands of dias I have in the cellar and which I once decided to transform ... but they still lay there.

I hope we can soon then listen to some more of your own music! (I have one very nice piece on my PC.) :-)

Lena said...

I just had to comment on this one, Owen... Or not...

Life IS good, that one's for sure!!

Warmest hugs from Mexico :)

Lady Mondegreen's Secret Garden said...

Stunning photos Owen. How I love crumbling stone and layers of taste. How wonderful to find your old negatives and especially the ones of your children, but oh the time to process them all!
Great tip about Audacity. Thanks :-)

Mark In Mayenne said...

I use Audacity, it's great.

Roxana said...

we all could use a little cobweb-cleaning from time to time... such an inspiring post, and utterly beautiful.
i have a digital scanner but i haven't used it in years, i don't have time to keep up with the rhythm of the digital photographing either. i am so glad that you have decided to go back in time and do this!

smiling bisous :-)

Céline said...

Je comprends pourquoi tu es moins présent ces temps-ci !! Et cela risque de durer... L'essentiel est que cela te donne du plaisir.
Amitiés

The Sagittarian said...

OOOH great plug about the cassette tape thingy (thanks!).
As for the houses, they look gorgeous (even to me)

Nathalie said...

Your photos are so typical of your work - gotta love them, especially the first one.
As for the cassette tapes' good condition, how's that for great news? Where were they stored? Attic? Cellar? Spare bedroom with a fairly even temperature? I thought the tapes would have turned to sticky tape rolls after twenty years.
The family is in for a treat once dad gets all his old music back!!!
:-))

Robert said...

Beau et particulier.

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Cassete a MP3